Google backtracks on search results design • Hacker News Board

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#131

Post by Siemer » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 9:57 AM UTC

hadlock wrote: post #113

Animats wrote: post #100

This may be a major event in Google's history - the point where they overdid ads and started to be perceived as a inferior service. This is sometimes called "pulling a Myspace". Myspace was once the top social network. They looked unchallengeable. Then they got greedy. Myspace kept upping their ad content until usage dropped. Instead of backing off the ads, they upped the ad content even more to maintain revenue. Usa…

In the early 2000s we called this "Jumping the Shark"

"Pulling a MySpace" means messing up your product so badly that your users abandon ship. "Jumping the Shark" means taking your story to such incredible heights that it becomes unbelievable. Not the same thing.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#132

Post by makomk » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:11 AM UTC

saghm wrote: post #28

dredmorbius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: you cannot DIRECTLY edit the URL in the navbar. Nor, for that matter, can you click, ctrl-A (yes, Virginia, I have and use a Bluetooth keyboard). Instead it's click, then Copy Icon. Utterly blinkered. Oddly: Incognito mode is not (yet) crippled in this manner. Don't get me started on pull-to-nuke-whatever-you'd-been-composing-or-losing-your-place-in-infernal-scroll

> yes, Virginia, I have and use a Bluetooth clipboard I'm assuming from context that your mean keyboard, but the idea sounds kind of cool so I have to ask: any chance this is a term for a a bluetooth device solely designed to facilitate copy-pasting between other devices?

There's no such Bluetooth device that I know of, but KDE Connect used to allow cross-device copy and paste between Android and desktop over WiFi until Google killed that feature off by disabling the clipboard access it needed.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#133

Post by TekMol » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:11 AM UTC

When I click this link, it redirects me to

    https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers?sessionId=...

Which is blocked by umatrix.

The Verge seems to cover it with less dirty tricks:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/24/21080424

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#134

Post by californical » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:16 AM UTC

gundmc wrote: post #102

userbinator wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, an obfuscation of functionality that clearly shows their attempts at behavioural conditioning.

HN has gone off the deep end in reading conspiratorial motivations behind every UI change and tweak.

I don't think it's a conspiracy --

If you can't go to expedia.com as easily as you can Google search Expedia, you'll probably do the later. And if you Google search Expedia, the first result is usually an ad for Expedia. Now Google makes money on you in a way they hadn't before. The more people expect Google to deal with all of the silly "web domain stuff" for them, the more money Google makes.

It's all about the incentives, and in the end there's only one incentive -- money.

I don't think anyone working at Google is being intentionally bad at all, but I do think their incentive structure ultimately results in prioritizing feeding people ads as much a possible. The A/B tests show that doing things a certain way results in more revenue, and that's what drives the decisions. There are likely no ethics meetings on the implications on society for each small change, but the collective result of many small harmless changes (aimed at increasing profit) is bad for society in the end. Not due to any conspiracy or "evil".

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#135

Post by capableweb » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:17 AM UTC

harshitaneja wrote: post #130

blackrock wrote: post #121

Can you also tell Google to fix the image search page? The new design is stupid. I prefer the previous design. The new design splits the page vertically, when you click on a picture. And its purpose, which is quite confusing, is to follow a second track of searches related to that picture. But that just makes the usage confusing. I want to click on the picture in order to see it in magnification mode, to have it fill…

Google was sued by Getty and had to make the change. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...

The only thing they would have to change to make Getty happy is that when you click on the image, it takes you to the place where the image was used, instead of the direct url of the image.

All the rest of the design choices was Google's, and we rightly blame them for purposefully degrading the experience of using Google Image search.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#136

Post by dijit » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:18 AM UTC

Defuse, wait, continue.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#137

Post by anonytrary » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

harshitaneja wrote: post #130

blackrock wrote: post #121

Can you also tell Google to fix the image search page? The new design is stupid. I prefer the previous design. The new design splits the page vertically, when you click on a picture. And its purpose, which is quite confusing, is to follow a second track of searches related to that picture. But that just makes the usage confusing. I want to click on the picture in order to see it in magnification mode, to have it fill…

Google was sued by Getty and had to make the change. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after...

I remember that, and I am a still a tiny bit salty about how it impacted me as a user. Ever since, it has been so unnecessarily tedious get the raw image link from Google. Half the time, I end up with a data url, sometimes I get taken to the backing website, who usually don't know anything about accessibility, sometimes I get the image. It's all just so much worse now.

That said, it is absolutely theft for Google to source data from your site, then use that to add value to their site, without giving you any click-through traffic.

Tangentially, it would be great if Google sent like $1 (edit: or < $1; the amount isn't my point) per 1000 clicks out to websites whose search results get clicked. They already have an ad-engine that does all of this. This would mean that you would get paid to have good SEO, or to be a central hub. The websites that comprise the entire web should negotiate better terms with central data brokers like Google.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#138

Post by anonytrary » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:24 AM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #126

blackrock wrote: post #121

Can you also tell Google to fix the image search page? The new design is stupid. I prefer the previous design. The new design splits the page vertically, when you click on a picture. And its purpose, which is quite confusing, is to follow a second track of searches related to that picture. But that just makes the usage confusing. I want to click on the picture in order to see it in magnification mode, to have it fill…

What's much worse is they removed the precise and custom image size search. It's now impossible to search for a 32x32 icon or a 3200x1800 wallpaper. This dumbing down and feature removal is sad and silly.

I didn't notice that. I never used exact dimension searches because more often than not, they eliminate all of the interesting results which I would have been able to crop/resize to my desired dimensions manually. It's better to have some results you can transform than to have no results.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#139

Post by gundmc » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:26 AM UTC

californical wrote: post #134

gundmc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has gone off the deep end in reading conspiratorial motivations behind every UI change and tweak.

I don't think it's a conspiracy -- If you can't go to expedia.com as easily as you can Google search Expedia, you'll probably do the later. And if you Google search Expedia, the first result is usually an ad for Expedia. Now Google makes money on you in a way they hadn't before. The more people expect Google to deal with all of the silly "web domain stuff" for them, the more money Google makes. It's all about the inc…

The change was a welcome QoL improvement in my opinion.

Typing a new address or copying the URL of the page I'm on covers ~95% of the use cases where I'm accessing the address bar on mobile and the change significantly reduces friction for both. It's exhausting to see every minute move Google/Amazon makes filtered through the HN cynicism lens.

Edit: Talking specifically about the chrome on Android omnibar change. The favicon desktop search change from TFA was awful.

Re: Google backtracks on search results design

#140

Post by kevsim » Sat, Jan 25, 2020, 10:29 AM UTC

negamax wrote: post #129

What's a good alternative to Google?

Well since this is HN, the overwhelming majority will say DuckDuckGo. I switched to DDG as my default browser search around 3 months ago and it's mostly been fine. However, when I _don't_ find what I'm looking for, I do find myself popping open Google for that specific search (sometimes finding things I didn't find with DDG). So I guess I don't have full faith in DDG just yet.